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A tasty diet of clever lyrics: Big Special’s National Average
New album: Following 2024’s LP Postindustrial Hometown Blues, the Walsall duo of Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney return with their distinctive, Midlands earthy drawl, drolly humorous, dark and oddly profound, poetic lyrics on the absurdity of life, filled with killer lines, many animal metaphors, spoken and sung to punchy post-punk and experimental sounds
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Kae Tempest: Self Titled
New album: A fifth LP by the acclaimed London writer and rapper brings further profound and passionate wordplay themed around their identity, personal story, and dark social issue themes, with a newer sometimes synth-pop sound and guests including Neil Tennant and Young Fathers
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Duo Ruut: Ilmateade
New album: A mesmeric, gorgeous new LP of experimental and traditional acoustic psych-folk songs by the Estonian duo of Ann-Lisett Rebane and Katariina Kivi, who write, sing and play facing each other, primarily on the kannel or (Estonian zither), using texts and repetitive motifs of runo song, oral poetry specific to the Baltic Finnic languages, here exploring the deep connections between weather and emotion
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Isaiah Hull: POCOMANIA
New album: The Manchester-born performance poet, rapper and self-defined “stand-up tragedian” releases a striking, distinctively styled experimental hip-hop debut with a title inspired by his heritage – meaning the Jamaican folk religion combining revivalism with ancestor worship and spirit possession
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Tropical Fuck Storm: Fairyland Codex
New album: The Melbourne quartet return with a fourth LP of unique, acerbic, eclectic post-punk and dadaistic psychedelia – droll, dark, menacing and humorous, here themed underworld of fateful characters facing the collapse of society
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Patrick Wolf: Crying The Neck
New album: Dramatic, flamboyant, emotionally charged, melancholy, powerful chamber pop by the English singer-songwriter blessed with a powerful high tenor voice, returning after a career lull, and inspired and recharged by his new home on the Kent coastline
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Endless musicianship: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Phantom Island
New album: An impressive 27th album already by the unstoppably prolific Australian band, and this is one of their most experimental and theatrical releases yet, less prog- and riff-based, more harking back to the days of dramatic, full-on, 1970s rock operas and musicals with dynamic orchestral pop, funk and jazz
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WITCH: SOGOLO
New album: Zambia’s zamrock pioneers with (with the acronym ‘We Intend To Cause Mischief’) and still fronted by original member Emanuel "Jagari" Chanda, return with their special fusion of infectious psychedelic, 60s garage-inspired funk rock and and afrobeat, with a meaty, melodious, selection of catchy new numbers
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Tiberius B: NEVERYTHING
New album: After a series of striking singles and EPs, a debut LP of cleverly nuanced experimental pop exploring diametric forces of self and relationships by the London-based artist born as Frank Belcourt, from Cortes Island, BC, Canada, co-produced by Dan Carey and Jamie Neville
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Shura: I Got Too Sad For My Friends
New album: With her first music since 2019’s acclaimed album forevher, the British singer-songwriter and producer Alexandra Denton returns with a third LP, one that embraces melancholy and addresses the self, capturing six years of uncertainty with a gentle, intelligent perspective, wrapped in refined, matured indie, pop, folk and Americana
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McKinley Dixon: Magic, Alive!
New album: Classy, literary, cultured, narrative-rich, experimental, dramatic, dynamic and stylish hip-hop by the Richmond-born, Chicago-based rapper in this follow-up to the acclaimed Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (2023) in a release exploring the fate of key characters and the idea of what constitutes magic in the turmoil of daily life
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Lucy Gooch: Desert Window
New album: Hovering and evolving in its own delicious, delicate, ghostly hinterland between folk, classical, jazz and ambient electronica, this exquisite debut by the British singer and composer from York is an ethereal, mesmeric tapestry of layered voices and acoustic instruments
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Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette
New album: The acclaimed Long Island rapper Ian Matthias Bavitz returns with another rich pageant of ingeniously rapid rhymes, ideas, beats and riffs, this one themed around invisible forces that shape our lives and psyches, featuring guests Lupe Fiasco, Armand Hammer, Hanni El Khatib, Open Mike Eagle and Homeboy Sandman
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Kathryn Joseph: WE WERE MADE PREY.
New album: Stark, menacing, visceral also hauntingly beautiful, the Glasgow singer-songwriter’s fourth LP reprises her creative partnership with fellow Scottish artist Lomond Campbell first explored on 2022’s For You Who Are The Wronged, with striking experimental soundscapes coloured by electronica as well as her piano and other instruments
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Caroline 2
New album: The London eight-piece experimental group return three years after their self-titled debut, with a stop-start, meandering, sometimes challenging but also magical album of interweaving vocals and analogue instruments – guitars, trombone, violins and more, but also electronica – and a guest appearance from Caroline Polachek
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Goddess: the eponymous debut by Fay Milton
New album: Striking in many ways, this excellent eponymous debut LP by the Savages drummer Fay Milton brings together an array of female and non-binary collaborators, not only celebrating a sisterhood, but also one that has musical echoes of Massive Attack, with powerful songs addressing themes in uncertain and dangerous world
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Léa Sen: LEVELS
New album: A classy, cool, effortlessly stylish, soulful, experimental electro-pop, R'n'B, and trip-hop debut LP by the south London-based French singer, songwriter and producer, whose vocal delivery has a warm, woozy, mellifluous style, with a smudged, muted and soft guitar sound, scattered, subtle electronics, jittering percussion and nuanced, philosophical lyrics
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Foxwarren: 2
New album: This new studio LP from the band project of Canadian singer-songwriter and solo artist Andy Shauf from Regina, Saskatchewan, is a charming, warm, experimental indie-rock and chamber-pop release that collages snippets of dialogue and music from old movies, between and within songs
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Alan Sparhawk: With Trampled By Turtles
New album: Suffused with a warmth, tenderness and powerful, grieving melancholy, this second solo album by the Low co-founder since the death in 2022 of his wife and lifelong creative Mimi Parker joins him with the fabulous fellow Duluth, Minnesota bluegrass and folk band Trampled By Turtles
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Skunk Anansie: The Painful Truth
New album: A first LP for nearly a decade by the acclaimed London rock band, back after two members have undergone cancer treatment, and with a bold, stylish, more experimental sound inspired by producer David Sitek of TV on the Radio, but still packing plenty of articulate, passionate, defiant, candid punch, especially with singer Skin at their forefront
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